


Inherited

by staymagical



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur sees dead people, Ghosts, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Merlin is a ghost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:32:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staymagical/pseuds/staymagical
Summary: When Arthur moves into the house his mother left him, he's not quite sure what to except. Least of all what he found.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop writing oneshots that beg to be full fics. It's becoming a problem. 
> 
> Sooooooo this might be continued, we shall see.
> 
> This is a fill for this week's Camelot Drabble #327: Random Dialogue "Why did you scream like that?"

“So this is it, eh?” Gwaine’s voice echoed through the empty house as they took in the space. The cleaners Arthur had sent on ahead had done a good job with the place. It looked fresh and clean, no evidence of the two decades it had been left untouched. A miracle actually. Arthur had expected them to say it was in too much disrepair to be salvaged. Perhaps someone had been looking after the place all this time. Arthur would have to find out who and thank them.

“Apparently,” Arthur said with a shrug. 

Gwaine put the box he was carrying down by the stairs in the foyer and walked further into the living space. “Not much, is it?”

“It’ll do just fine,” Arthur said, putting down his own boxes and the lamp he had stashed on his front seat. They were for his bedroom but he wanted to take in the place for a minute before the hard work began. It was a lovely modest home, with exposed wooden beams and a fireplace in the living room. More vintage than modern, but he had expected that. It had been his mother’s decades ago after all. “I just don’t understand why she kept it a secret, even from my father.”

“He didn’t know?” Gwaine’s voice carried from the kitchen. “But I thought he left it to you in his will?”

“No, she did,” Arthur shouted back. He ran a hand along the mantle, trying to picture his mother’s things back then and how she had decorated it. Colorful paintings, odds and ends, a bookshelf or five, he had no doubt. “Of a sort. It was detailed in a letter addressed to me that was hidden at the bottom of my father’s desk. Unopened.”

Gwaine whistled as he joined Arthur back in the living room. “Shit.”

Arthur nodded. 

They were silent for a moment, the secret of the place settling over them like a thin fog.

Gwaine broke the silence first. “Did she say anything in the letter? About why she kept it or anything?”

“Not much,” Arthur said with a shake of his head. He unlatched the far window in the living space and pushed it open. A cool breeze blew through, teasing his hair and tickling the back of his neck. “Just that she had lived here through her late teens and early twenties until she met my father. Even after, she couldn’t bring herself to let the place go. Said she hoped I would take good care of him.”

“I’m sorry, him?”

Arthur gestured around them as he made his way back into the foyer. “The house. She called it a him.”

Gwaine laughed. “Oh I wish I had the chance to meet your mother. She sounds like a good time.”

Arthur whirled around. “I swear Gwaine if you continue that thought I will shove this lamp so far up your ass you will feel it until next Wednesday.”

“Is that a promise?” Arthur groaned at the glint in Gwaine’s eye. He should have asked Leon to help him instead.

Arthur ran a hand down his face and pointed toward the front door. “Go,” he growled, “bring in more boxes.”

With a mischievous grin and a two finger salute, Gwaine bounded out the door, his chuckling carrying in from the street. 

Arthur shook his head, removing the lamp from the stack of boxes before heaving the boxes back into his arms and making his way up the stairs.

At the top landing, he hefted the box further up in his arms as he walked down the hall and into the master bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and took in the sunlit room, bright and airy. Inviting. His mother’s old room, or so he assumed. 

His mother hadn’t left much in way of details about the place.

Arthur sighed and made to step into the room. But in the next second, a boy appeared in front of him out of thin air, silent and semi-translucent like a wisp of smoke. Arthur screamed, dropping the boxes with a loud thud onto the wooden floorboards.

The boy screamed in return.

Arthur broke out of his shock first, cutting himself off as he narrowed his eyes at the boy. Okay, boy was pushing it. He couldn’t have been much younger than Arthur was now, all tousled black hair and sharp lean features. The clothes he wore were old, extremely vintage, just a simple shirt and trousers that hinted at a modest life. 

And translucent. All of him was.

Arthur could never catch a break.

Footsteps sounded from the stairs, Gwaine’s worried tone carrying down the hall. “Arthur?! Is everything alright? Why did you scream like that?”

“Everything’s fine,” Arthur said quickly. The boy in front of him raised an eyebrow. Arthur scowled at him. “Just saw a spider. It’s gone now.”

“Jesus.” Gwaine’s voice was closer now, just on the landing but his footsteps had stopped. “You and damn spiders, I swear.” 

He really needed to come up with a better excuse, especially after all these years. 

Arthur stayed silent, listening as Gwaine’s footsteps retreated down the stairs, evening out as he hit the lower floor. The boy opened his mouth to say something but Arthur held up a finger. The boy drew back, startled speechless. The slam of the door signaled the all clear and Arthur growled, turning his attention back to the boy. 

“Goddamnit, how many times do I have to tell you lot not pop up like that?” The boy looked bewildered for all of a second before he crossed his arms and glared at Arthur, opening his mouth to respond. Arthur plowed on, unperturbed by the moody spirit. He’d met enough of them to last several lifetimes, no pun intended. “I have very little friends as it is, I don’t want my last few to be scared off because some half-brained spirit wants a quick chat.”

“Well excuse me for existing in my own home.” The boy turned his head and huffed. “Prat.”

Arthur chose to ignore the insult. “Your home? Oh great, just great.” He threw up his hands and began angrily pushing the boxes into the corner. There was no use unpacking. “I will be having words with Khilgarrah. He didn’t say anything about a death in this house. And I was very thorough with my own research.” He had to be, given his...affliction. For him, living in a space inhabited by spirits was like a light sleeper living with a chiming clock. He would never get any peace.

“Well do you think anyone asked my opinion on the matter?” Arthur gave the spirit a sidelong glance and rolled his eyes as he pushed the last box aside and made for the bedroom door. The boy threw his hands wide, voice rising. “I didn’t ask for my home to be invaded or for some pompous man as a roommate.”

Arthur whirled around in the doorway. “Roommate?! Oh no no no, we are not roommates. In fact, we are not mates at all. So whatever you came to me for, you can forget it. Just piss off.”

“You know, for a second I thought—” the spirit fell quiet, and shook his head, his face suddenly falling. Sorrowful. “But no, you are nothing like her.” 

Just as his words sank in, the boy disappeared as silently as he had appeared, leaving Arthur standing in the doorway, all the breath stolen from his lungs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, more...

It took four days and increasingly persistent and threatening harassment to get the ghost to show himself again. Arthur’s apologies and pleas had yielded nothing later morphing in threats and grumblings that had been equally ignored. By the end of the fourth day, he had unpacked nearly everything—there was no way he could leave now, not that he had any desire to return to the city—folding the last box labeled “kitchen” flat and throwing it with the others on the dining room table. The entire time he had unpacked, he talked to….well apparently to no one. 

He really should have gotten the ghost’s name.

“That should do it,” Arthur said aloud, taking in the kitchen with its painted white cabinetry and old vintage blue stove. It was quite charming, if a bit more on the dated side, but Arthur enjoyed it immensely. It was a far cry from the ultra sleek stainless steel hard interiors of his father’s house in the city. “I’m all moved in now, ghosty, and not going anywhere. So you can either show yourself and talk to me or I’m going to search every corner of this house for your haunt. Either way, you can’t ignore me forever.”

“Whatever you are going to ask, the answer is no.” Arthur whirled around to find the ghost perched on the kitchen counter, one leg pulled up, the other dangling down. He was glaring at Arthur. If Arthur had been anyone else, he would have hightailed it out of there. But he had learned that most ghosts weren’t violent. They were just, there, stuck in limbo with nothing to do and no way to move on. Boredom does strange things to people, dead or alive.

And judging by their first meeting and how the ghost had seemed just as surprised to be seen as Arthur was to see him, he was harmless. He had known Ygraine, after all. Which was exactly why Arthur had decided to stay.

This boy, this ghost was the closest connection he had to his mother. There would never be another, not anymore now that his father was gone. He needed to know everything the ghost could tell him.

But Arthur couldn’t show his hand straight away.

Arthur folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against the counter opposite. “What makes you think I want to ask you anything?”

The ghost raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been filling my house with your pompous, nagging pleas and colorful threats for the past four days. Of course you want something.”

Arthur didn’t miss the way he said my house. He chose to not comment.

“So you did hear me.” Arthur smirked at the boy.

“It’s a bit hard not to,” the ghost said with a huff, resting his elbow on his knee. “Your ego is very loud.”

Four days was a long time to ignore someone. Especially Arthur. He knew how incessant and irritating he could be. Morgana liked to remind him frequently and with more colorful wording. 

Arthur ignored the dig. “What do you do all day anyway?”

“Make pottery,” the ghost deadpanned.

“What?”

The ghost leaned forward a bit, as though sharing some joke Arthur should be aware of. “Make pottery. With Demi Moore.”

Arthur stared at him blankly.

The ghost groaned, letting his leg hang down with the other as he leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You’ve never seen Ghost?!” he said, eyes scrutinizing Arthur as though he had a third eye.

Arthur shook his head, unsure what the ghost was referring to. A movie, he assumed. Or a show? Perhaps it was an oldie. Arthur didn’t watch many movies, a habit that Gwaine and Leon were actively trying to break him of. “No.” 

The ghost threw up his hands. “How have I seen it before you? I’m dead!” He gestured toward Arthur, eyes narrowed. “What kind of medium are you?”

“A reluctant one,” Arthur said, unperturbed.

The ghost huffed, jumping down off the counter to saunter into the dining room. “Clearly,” he said, running a hand along the back of one of the wood chairs. He looked out at the living room beyond, eyes raking over Arthur’s couch and chairs, the dark wood coffee table, the flat screen tv he mounted the day before. Arthur was suddenly aware of just how young the ghost was, and yet how very old he must be. How odd most of Arthur’s furniture and possessions must be to him.

Arthur watched him for a second longer, once again taking note of the simple worn white shirt and dark loose trousers. Over the years he had found himself picking up and being able to distinguish the styles and cuts of different clothing from different eras. It was the first clue he usually got about a spirit, about the time period in which they lived and died. Women were easier, with their drastically changing cuts and styles and various accessories that went in and out of fashion. But men on the other hand were harder to distinguish. Shirts and trousers, suits and ties, they stuck around for a long time only changing in small subtle ways. Ways Arthur was still learning to identify. 

Judging by the way the ghost was dressed, he had to be from somewhere in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Maybe?

“How old are you?” Arthur asked after a beat.

The ghost turned around, taking in Arthur once more. He tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Twenty-four.”

Arthur shook his head. “No, I mean how long have you been,” he gestured around him, at the house, “around? When were you born?”

The ghost scowled. “You’ve been hollering and shouting and kicking up a fuss because you want to know when I was born? Piss off.”

He crossed his arms, looking like he was about to vanish. 

“No wait!” Arthur reacted on instinct, reaching out to grab onto the boy before he could leave. But his hand went right through the ghost’s arm. They both shivered at the contact, the boy’s eyes wide, face slack with shock.

Curious.

“Look,” Arthur tried again when the boy remained where he was. “I’m sorry for the way things started off. I just, you took me by surprise, alright. I came out here hoping to get away from you lot.” He shook his head, mind back on his upbringing in the city. It had been chaotic for him, constantly hounded by the dead everywhere he went, ghosts seeking him out, approaching him at every corner, street, and building. He hadn’t been able to get away. “The city is no place for someone like me.”

Silence fell between them briefly as the ghost seemed to think over Arthur’s words. His face betrayed nothing, impassive and sotic as his eyes held Arthur’s own, searching. Then he finally sighed and nodded. “Your mother said the same thing.”

A pang went through Arthur’s heart. “She,” he paused, swallowed around the lump in his throat and tried again, “she was she like me?”

“A medium?” The ghost nodded. “Yes.”

Arthur hesitated before finally asking what he had been thinking about every since he met the ghost. “And you knew her well?”

The ghost looked away then, eyes downcast as he hunching in on himself. “She was the only person I ever knew,” he whispered.

Arthur frowned. “How is that, there must have been others?” There was no way this centuries old ghost hadn’t met anyone else. He had to have family or friends back when he was alive, right? Especially for one so young, he had to have known someone.

But then again, this wasn’t the first time Arthur had come across a ghost who had lost all memory of their life before. It happened to those who had been left alone for too long. Those spirits that haunted abandoned and neglected places, overgrown and forgotten. Just like the person that lingered inside, trapped with nothing but the knowledge of their death for company.

Arthur wouldn’t wish that on even his worst enemy.

The ghost shook his head. “Not that I can remember,” he said, confirming Arthur’s suspicions. Arthur’s heart dropped. No one deserved that kind of eternity. It pained him to imagine this young man, once full of life and love, trapped in the place he had died with no one to keep him company. No one to keep him sane. 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said, words genuine and sincere as he looked at the boy. “I’m—I’m glad my mother was there to help you.”

The ghost nodded, looking up at Arthur again. Arthur hadn’t noticed just how blue his eyes were, but they shone now beneath a film of sorrow. He had the sudden urge to comfort the ghost, despite knowing how pointless the action would be. 

But just as quickly, the moment was gone and the boy straightened up, face resolute as though he had come to some sort of conclusion. “Meet me in the basement,” he said firmly with a nod to Arthur.

And then he vanished.

Arthur stood stock still, waiting for his brain to catch up and make sense of the change that had just occurred. 

“There’s a basement?”


End file.
